


water in my lungs

by Larrant



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, M/M, One-Sided Attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-09-01 11:37:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8623102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Larrant/pseuds/Larrant
Summary: a series of moments (only life is made up of moments)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [finalizer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/finalizer/gifts).



> Drabble for you guys xD.

 

 

 

 _Orson_ , his father had named him. Sneering. Cold. The first son, and still so weak, so feeble. Not like his brother, cruel and cunning, bandying their parents’ favour. Not like his sister, brilliant, bold, strong- she went into the military, she would become something great.

 _Orson_ , his father had said, disappointed, and he had hated that name.

He told others- ‘Krennic’, and even if it was his father’s name, he took it. He would take that name from his father, he would take that name and when people said it they would only be talking about _him-_ they would have forgotten about the old, decaying crypt of a man his father would become.

And yet.

 _Orson_ , Galen called him, lilting and soft. There had been something tied into those vowels, something unknown he had not yet managed to forget.

That name hadn’t felt wrong, when Galen said it.

After he leaves the Academy, it starts feeling wrong all over again.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t want you to talk.” He says, the first time it happens. There’s Huttese music blaring from an old jukebox, and grime sticking to the table Krennic sits down at. The lower levels of Coruscant, and the filth of the smoke clings to his throat when he breathes.

The man in front of him shrugs, raises the shotglass in his hand and downs the murky liquid. He looks like he understands, looks like he empathizes. “Sure.”

They leave for other, less public places.

It doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t even leave him feeling fulfilled or satisfied.

Still, the next time happens two months later.

 

* * *

 

Here’s a clue: they keep happening.

 

* * *

 

He forgets after they happen, he never goes back to the same person. He doesn’t consider if it makes things better or worse.

But- Krennic remembers the fourth time, remembers for years. He had been a boy, young and red-eyed and hands shaking on the glass he held. It had taken him a long time to forget that look in the boy’s eyes- heartbreak, maybe, sorrow, as if he had grasped the universe in his hands and it had been nothing more than an illusion.

He remembers being soft on that one, remembers seeing himself in the boy, and when he left he had almost hesitated at the doorway- hesitated, and then left.

He never goes for anyone with that look in their eye again.

 

* * *

 

Krennic climbs, he climbs and he climbs and he climbs, and the top is so far from sight. The others fear him, he knows that. He’s already making military history, he’s already going further than anyone his age should be. They talk about him, to his face and behind his back- respect and contempt and resentment mingled. It’s not enough.

He reads articles on the net- a breakthrough, an article says, and there’s an image there, of a young man with glittering eyes and a beaming smile on his lips, and the article goes on to mention nominations, visitations, the sheer incredibility of this work- perhaps, it suggests, with mounting excitement, the most influential person of the century.

Krennic fastens the top button of his uniform, stares at himself in the mirror- dark eyes and hollowed cheeks and there are badges on his chest, metallic and gleaming.

 _It’s not enough_.

 

* * *

 

“Join me,” the Senator tells him, quietly, his eyes gleaming, something warm and compelling in them that could convince anyone.

He can see right through. He knows greed- he is the same, in a way, he sees himself reflected in the man’s pale gaze. He sees the promise of something great- even if blood must be shed to grant it.

But it’s not peace he wants, it’s not calm obscurity in the relics of history.

 _Power_ , he reads in those words. And he smiles.

“I am at your command.”

 

* * *

 

He sees him again once- he thinks he does. The back of him, in a crowd. The hair is so familiar, the laughter is so real.

It must be him, it must be. He is struck by the sudden urge to go to him, to barge through the crowd and find out if it really- if it is, if this is real, if it’s _him._

He takes a step forwards, but then the crowd seems to converge, and when he’s gotten his bearings again the man is nowhere in sight.

There’s a laugh on his lips, somehow. The laugh is halfway to bitter, and halfway to sardonic irony. A beep sounds from his belt, a holocall, and he forgets the moment in favour of answering the call.

 

* * *

 

 _Married_ , he hears, listens in to the conversations of his former friends.

 _A real beauty_ , they say. _A genius too, she was one of the founders of the Ortellan theory. Didn’t you hear, I heard they met while working together- it’s a shame she never went to our Academy_.

_Didn’t you hear?_

_Didn’t you know?_

He knocks back his glass, and goes in search of another brown-eyed, dark haired boy to occupy his night.

 

* * *

 

 _‘I_ _love you’_ he babbles, chanting, clutching at the arms that hold him, _I love you I love you I love you_.

There are lips kissing the words from his mouth, there are hands and the heat of them travels to his bones, to his chest and to the cold and banishes the chill away.

 _I love you,_  he says, breathlessly and laughing, and he means it.

(here’s the problem with that: he wakes up, and the words are ash on his lips)

 

* * *

 

A thought, on that dream. A thought he can’t stop thinking about.

Here’s the thought, in all its simplicity. Maybe if he had said it, he thinks. Maybe if he had just said it. Maybe everything would have changed.

(maybe nothing would have changed)

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t keep track of how many there have been, or how many there will be. They’re different each time, after all.

Once, when he’s on the lower levels of Coruscant, tipping back a Tihaar, there’s a man who sits on an opposite table, and when he notices Krennic gazing at him, he smiles with a strange edge, nods and winks.

“It’s been awhile,” the man says eventually, coming over to him and pulling up a stool uninvited.

It’s been years. But he doesn’t say that.

“Still not over that guy, huh?” The man asks, knowingly, and Krennic doesn’t answer him. They drink in silence. The man pays for Krennic’s tab, pats him on the shoulder, and leaves.

He spends a long time staring at the shotglass left on the table.

 

* * *

 

Here is the story: there is no happy ending.

Here is the story: he endures, and he endures, and he endures and eventually, the story ends.

(in the distance, there’s the scream of a siren, a call for his blood)

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So I went shopping the other day and look what I found. A Star Wars Rogue One exhibit [right in the middle of the plaza](http://imgur.com/a/Uml5D). It was great. It gave me inspiration for this ship even though there was only one tiny Krennic model on display (that I didn't take a photo of).


End file.
